At that moment, FanDuel is raking in $27,500 in entry fees per second. Eccles says he plans to expand the number of live contests, including some at the Playboy Mansion. He’s talking with sports channels about producing a reality show about fantasy players, or maybe a show like CNBC’s Mad Money but about pro athlete values instead of stocks. “I just think that’d be really interesting TV,” he says.

The site collects 10 percent from each entry fee and leaves the rest for prizes. Revenue last year, after paying out $564.5 million in winnings, was $57.3 million. That’s up from about $14 million the previous year and $1.2 million in 2011. Eccles says the company isn’t profitable, “but we’re building a multibillion-dollar business.”

About 80 percent of FanDuel revenue comes from top-quintile spenders such as Bryce Mauro (3rd_and_Schlong), a 21-year-old student at DePauw University. Mauro says he spends about $35,000 on as many as 1,000 NFL contests per week on FanDuel and other sites, plus another $15,000 per night on basketball. He says he made $250,000 in profit last year. “I do it as my full-time job, basically,” he says.